1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanized bakery equipment, and more particularly to machinery for the automatic selective makeup of bread dough into one of several dough piece shapes for subsequent baking in a continuous baking operation, the machinery being readily convertible from one dough piece shape to another, without modification.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Bread or bread-like products have historically been by far the most important of all food staples. The growing mobility of large segments of population from one region to another and from one country to another has brought about corresponding changes in the bread eating habits of local consumer groups, the changing habits reflected themselves in a considerably wider variety of types of breads being in demand.
The bread producers, desirous to respond to this changing demand pattern, are being forced to offer a much greater variety of bread products than in the past. But, the desired to offer a greater variety of bread products is in direct conflict with the increasing need for mechanization of all bakery operations, in order to reduce production costs. Obviously, the mechanization of bread production is only then economical, when the automatic equipment is in use on a continuous basis. In the past, this meant that only one kind of bread could be produced economically on a continuous basis.
Known mechanized dough makeup equipment is normally arranged in line with a continuously operating baking oven, forming a processing line for one particular bread shape, loaves, or round bread, or flat bread. Such a dough makeup line starts with a dough divider at the beginning of the line, into which the mixed dough is loaded batch by batch. The dough pieces produced by the dough divider pass through a dough piece rounder, and from there to a fermenting unit, or so-called proofer, where they are left to rest to redevelop the gas content lost during rounding. Following proofing, the dough pieces undergo a molding operation, as they pass through suitable molding or shaping equipment. The latter may include stretch-molding and/or roll-molding equipment. The shaped dough pieces are then transferred to baking pallets or baking pans which carry them into a tunnel oven.
Such a mechanized dough makeup line does not offer the possibility of quickly converting the bread production to a different bread shape, like switching from the production of loaves to flat bread, or to round bread, for example. Extensive modifications would be necessary for such a switch, and these modifications would involve a prolonged disruptive shutdown of all the equipment, besides requiring highly skilled special personnel for this purpose.
The different kinds of bread which are to be produced differ not only in terms of the types of flour used, they also call for widely differing weights and shapes. For instance, while the general preference in central and northern Europe goes to long bread, such as rolled or pan loaves, southern countries have a preference for flat breads, for example.
In my co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 669,098, filed Mar. 22, 1976, I am disclosing a dough makeup line for the selective mechanized production of long bread and flat bread. This dough makeup line uses two parallel arranged longitudinal dough piece molding lines equipped with appropriate adjustable molding stations for the different bread shapes. One or the other of the two molding lines is selectively operable, and both lines feed their output to a common transverse dough piece molding line which leads to a baking palette loading station, from where the molded dough pieces are fed to the baking oven.